The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
--- Winston Churchill

Thursday, June 10, 2010

No More Census

I turned in my census badge this morning. I had already made the decision last night simply because there wasn't anything for me to really work on, but it was made much easier by the fresh load of bullshit from the Concord office dumped on my head when I showed up for the daily meeting this morning. The details aren't important; it was just more of the same continuous stream of steaming shit that has been flowing from the Concord census office since day one. The goal seems to be to make this the most expensive and least accurate census on record. In my opinion, they have succeeded. In any case, I'm out of it and could care less other than getting my last couple checks.

New England must have even shorter summers than Michigan. All week it has ranged from cool to down-right cold with lots of rain rolling around the area. We're supposed to get some sunny, warm-ish days for a bit. We have an outdoor graduation next week and Debbie's mom is coming over for a few days to get the quickie New Hampshire tour, so we have all our fingers and toes crossed hoping the weather gods hold off on the rain.

We have some new photos up that I keep forgetting to link to:

A set of photos from the town cemetery in Winchester (the next town down the highway from where we live). I don't know why I'm drawn to cemeteries, but I haven't been able to resist old tombstones since I got semi-serious into photography back in the mid-1980's.

We also have a set of photos from the Memorial Weekend we spent with Debbie's brother and family in Madison, CT. No tombstones in that batch; just pictures normal people would take.

More tension on the US/Mexico border after the US Border Patrol killed a 15-year-old Mexican. The border agent is, of course, automatically guilty because everyone knows that a 15-year-old is nothing but sweetness and light. Even one that is known on both sides of the border as a drug mule who makes routine illegal crossings and throws rocks at armed men for sport. Another example of the unbiased press telling stories rather than reporting the news. And yes, I'm ignoring the larger picture of our grotesque drug and border policies that pretty much make this sort of thing inevitable.

“The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over,” Soros said today at a conference in Vienna. “Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama.”

But hey! The Dow closed back up over 10,000! Green shoots! Once again, the problem is too much debt. Moving the debt around while simultaneously increasing it exponentially isn't solving the problem. We are on a road. The end of that road is well known. And painful.

On a related note, Cracked has a list of six companies that charge people for nothing. The existence of these companies (and hundreds like them) is baffling to me. That "adults" pay for their services with borrowed money is proof that America is the land of over-aged children. That a comedy web site is the only one with the balls to point it out is... well....

Here is an investment strategy that will likely do as well as any other. Keep in mind that it has been shown repeatedly that picking stocks by throwing darts at the WSJ stock page consistently out-performs most investment strategies including those used by professional investors. And the article was written by someone who draws comics for a living. Still, it is an interesting theory.

Yet-another article is laying out the argument that Obama is an incompetent executive. This will probably be the last of these I bother to link to. It's so obvious that Obama has no significant real-world experience necessary for the office that it's like shooting fish in a barrel. There just isn't any sport in it.